Record number of visitors swarm into Shanghai Expo site

The Shanghai World Expo 2010 has received more than 64 million visitors, a record in the event, said its official website Saturday. On Saturday alone, more than 1 million visitors were recorded. The Expo, which started May 1, will close on Oct 31. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

SHANGHAI - A total of 1.03 million people visited the Shanghai World Exposition on Saturday, a record number since the Expo opened. The total number also exceeded an earlier record.

The Expo had received some 64.62 million visitors by the end of Saturday, the 169th day since the event began on May 1. The previous record was set during the 1970 Osaka World Expo in Japan, which about 64 million people attended over a six month period.

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Attendance may be increasing since this is the first weekend after the week-long National Day holiday and the second to last weekend before the final seven designated days from October 25-31.

Since early this morning, the Expo' s public transportation system has been under great pressure as visitors have been seen throughout the Expo site.

Visitors needed to queue up for more than one hour before being admitted to most pavilions. Some popular pavilions, including the Oil Pavilion and Space Home Pavilion, stopped visitors from queuing up by 4 or 5 pm because of the large crowds.

Many visitors could only walk around, take pictures outside of pavilions, or have picnics at rest area. Further, all parades were canceled due to the large number of visitors.

Zhou Qian and Dai Shishi from Hangzhou described the long queues as "horrible". But Zhou said she had been prepared for the situation as they visited seven pavilions, including the Egyptian and Spanish pavilions.

A visitor surnamed Zhang and her daughter, a high school student in Shanghai, entered the site at 11 a.m. but had only visited three pavilions by 6:30 p.m.

"And all of them are small ones. It's not a proper time to come, but it's not easy for my daughter to be free," Zhang said.

A series of measures have been taken to deal with the situation, according to the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo.

When the number exceeded 700,000 visitors, organizers made announcements to visitors through the World Expo official website, TV Station, mobile televisions, and telecommunication operators.

Visitors were persuaded to avoid peak times on televisions seen on subways in the morning, and in the afternoons they were advised not to continue entering the site today.